attracting birds, bulbs, months 01-03: winter

Flower Count – day 4 – iris

03/04/2012 svseekins 6 Comments

I’m not spending much time outside today. There’s a chilly wind. It’s not raining, and for that, I’m grateful. I’m also grateful to be washing dishes, believe it or not. The hot, soapy water is warming my fingers. Handy.

The kitchen sink is also a handy place to stand & gaze out at the garden. When else do I take the time to stare out a window? For this reason, I’ve heavily planted this garden area with early bulbs.

Today I’m rewarded. Iris reticulata.

They’re quite small, only 4 to 6 inches high. Especially at this time of year, I’m thrilled with flowers of any size. These are bright enough to notice from my vantage point in the kitchen. Here I go again, to grab the camera & hunker down on the cold earth to get a closer look.

These are not my mother’s iris. Those have tubers running along at soil level, leaves that grow knee-high, and blooms in late spring. These miniature iris grow from bulbs, show little leaf at this point, and started to appear in late February! How can they even be related?

Mom’s iris are called Russian or Siberian iris – – maybe? I’ve since heard of Dutch iris, Japanese iris, and these Dwarf iris. Maybe there are even more kinds. Mind boggling. Either way, these iris reticulata are definitely the earliest in our garden.

dwarf iris & winter aconite — photo by SVSeekins

The deer seem to leave them alone, so I’ve also planted more bordering the driveway. That way we can appreciate them as we come & go.

Iris strike me as exotic, with such frilly petals & rich colour They seem so out-of-place in the cold. I can’t stop a big smile & I welcome them with a warm heart. Maybe I’ll stay out here just a little longer… I hear now’s a good time to feed the bulb beds with a little lime and bone meal to encourage more spring growth.

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attracting birds, evergreens, months 01-03: winter, natives, urban deer

Flower Count – day 3 – mahonia

03/03/2012 svseekins 5 Comments

It was early February when I ran across this burst of sunshine in Victoria.

mahonia in February — photo by SVSeekins

Mahonia is an evergreen shrub that boasts happy yellow flower clusters through winter.

This particular specimen is certainly more showy than the local mahonia (Oregon grape) that grows in our yard.

At this time of year the tall Oregon grape in our shrub border is only just preparing to bloom.

mahonia - tall Oregon grape in February — photo by SVSeekins

By summer it’ll be sporting dark berries. One of my favorite resource books, Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, tells that some use the berries to make jelly with real pucker power.

Oregon grape with berries — photo by SVSeekins

The leaves are shaped like holly, but aren’t nearly as hard and prickly.

I’ve seen full-sized holly trees, but mahonia only seem to come in shrubs or ground covers.

Holly berries are red, while mahonia’s are blue.

In some places, folks consider holly an invasive. I’ve not heard any such complaint about the mahonia.

Aside from watering it for the first summer after transplanting, Oregon grape seems happy here with no attention at all.

This one is a hard worker. It’s evergreen, so it’s interesting all year-long. The winter blooms feed hummingbirds. The summer fruit feeds other birds. The mild prickles deter deer. Who could ask for more?

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evergreens, months 01-03: winter, perrennials, urban deer

Flower Count – day 2 – bergenia

03/02/2012 svseekins 2 Comments

In some ways I should like bergenia more than I do. It has good traits that usually rank high in my books.

bergenia - pig squeak — photo by SVSeekins

Evergreen
Winter flowering
Drought tolerant
Low maintenance
Inexpensive
Hardy to zone 4
Shade tolerant

I do celebrate the blooms when they arrive.

This year I realised that the deer celebrate those blooms, too. Hmmmm. No wonder the bloom time seemed so short. Deer don’t seem to snack on the fleshy leafs, so the patches survive.

bergenia - elephant ears — photo by SVSeekins

Elephant ears is a common name for this plant. Kinda makes sense because of the large, rounded plant material.

Pig Squeak is another nick name. Apparently it makes a noise when rubbing the turgid leafs, but I’ve never noticed.

In other gardens I’ve been impressed with a occasional lovely display of colourful foliage, or strikingly large blooms. Perhaps those were other cultivars than the one in our yard.

In mid-summer the patches look kind of ratty, and I don’t really care for that. C doesn’t like them much either, so we don’t pay them much attention.

I reckon bergenia does a fair job as a ground cover in really tough spots of the yard. For now they’re safe. There are higher priority areas around the garden. That is until I somehow find some horticultural treasure that would suit that space better.

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